If you had told me, when I was plotting my HBO Drama Series Insane Character Face-off brackets, that Vern Schillinger and Francis Wolcott would have a smackdown in a mattress store largely comprised of bouncing...well, sir, I would have called you a liar.
This episode of Raising Hope had it all: Richard Marx music, a Josh Groban joke, Paul F. Tompkins, caricatures, Mary Lynn Rajskub, and the universal truth that people doing funny Muppet voices like Yoda or Gollum are only entertaining and awesome to the person doing them (or, if you like someone doing those voices, you are in a cult). I love this show and its many shenanigans.
Its lead-in, Glee, was okay, I suppose. Uneven, as always. The tender love story of Brittany and Santana was surprising in both its depth and honesty. I've always loved Naya as Santana, but this is the ep that made me convinced she's one of the best things about the show. I'm confident she will not be Cordelia Chased (that is, impregnated by a demon, stripped of her bitchy vulnerability, unable to ever truly express her love for Angel...because Angel is a girl who believes that a stork nested in a tree outside her window, and Joss Whedon hardly ever does anything bad to lesbians).
Joss Whedon is the creator and lead writer of Glee, right?
Kurt and Burt were great, as always, but I'm sad that the set-up to that fantastic scene was a teenage boy, who we, the audience, are supposed to like and root for, lecturing a grown-up person on how to raise his child. Look, Show, I'm trying here. The Internet has spoken, and at least 80% of them are bonkers mcgee over both Darren Criss and his Dapper Dan'ed creation, so I know he's sticking around. He's cute enough. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe he's not the character for me. He was kind enough to show his pelvis hollows in Out magazine (what I usually call "pudding valleys," but I won't, because gross and cover your shame, Darren Criss). But Show, you don't make it easy for me when Blaine is a know-it-all asshole to Kurt about sexy faces (as though the goony, asinine mugging he does is delicious) and then gets Dawson Leery Condescension Syndrome and swans around dispensing world-weary wisdom to Burt Hummel.
I don't want Kurt's first boyfriend to be a prick. Is what I'm saying, I guess. And I don't want him to be a lame-o. So shape up, Show. Stop making Blaine a lame-o prick.
Oh, and by the way, I think baby penguins and Kurt Hummels/Chris Colfers are sultry in their own adoraaaaaaaaable way.
The storyline with Emma, Carl, and Will is excruciating. And they need to figure out something for Jane Lynch to do that is not what she has been doing lately, which is annoying me. I don't want to be annoyed by Jane Lynch.
"Landslide" was my favorite cover, though bonus points to "Afternoon Delight" for its excellent use of Mark Salling's hilariousness.
Everything Puck did tonight was hilarious. I am done with trying to make any sense of Glee, though. I just kind of watch it as a cartoon that has no continuity from week to week, and that works out for me.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, my favorite part of Glee is when it's over and it's time for Raising Hope, which was FABOO tonight.
Brittney and Santana, Burt and Kurt, and imo an always delightfully oddball Holly, made the Sexy episode worth it. I ignore the rest because it irritates me too much.
ReplyDeleteRaising Hope, though, was aces from start to finish. Brother-husbands, boo-ya!
Raising Hope was so much fun.
ReplyDeleteI followed it up on Hulu with the last, unwatched-by-me episode of Running Wilde, which, with a little time and distance, I found...well, "excruciating" might be pushing it, but yeah, there is no Running Wilde-shaped hole in my heart, that's for sure. Every second Serafinowicz wasn't on screen I was sooooo boooooooored.
Yeah, I don't think anyone is going to mourn the loss of "Running Wilde" the way "Arrested Development" gets mentioned (all the time lately) (come on, nerds, let's find a new monkey to spank).
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